Key Speakers Announced for January 2017 PostalVision Event

Key Speakers Announced with More to Come!

“Delivery by Design” Event to be Held January 23, 2017—Limited Seating!

PostalVision 2020 today announced more key speakers for its January 23, 2017, “Delivery by Design” one-day event to be held at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, in Arlington, VA. The event will focus on looking at today’s mail/parcel delivery environment and the growing challenges from projected ecommerce growth. Participants will explore the existing delivery landscape, trends for tomorrow, and the challenges for users, service providers and other stakeholders. This event will complement parallel efforts by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its Congressionally-requested study of the USPS monopoly.

Announced today are the following key speakers and topics to be covered at the January 23, 2017 event. Stay tuned for more upcoming announcements on additional speakers and content!

Dan Barrett, USPS Director, Customer & Market Insights, will participate on a panel designed to take a closer look at how things are changing on the current and future home delivery landscape. Barrett, with over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing management both with the USPS and in private industry, will provide USPS insights and research regarding the mailbox. Barrett has held a number of marketing and technology positions related to the USPS’ package growth, focused on Priority Mail and ground delivery, and he currently oversees the USPS’ customer & market insights group.

Brody Buhler, Global Managing Director, Post and Parcel industry, Accenture, also will participate on the morning panel, bringing a wealth of experience working on postal programs. Buhler is a senior executive with Accenture, with 11 years of experience working on USPS programs and current responsibility for Accenture’s work in the Intelligent Mail and Address Quality and Expedited Shipping organizations. He also has responsibility in Accenture’s global Postal industry practice with deep experience in mail visibility, mailings services and revenue protection and serves on the Board of Directors of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom).

Bernhard Bukovc, Managing Director of the Postal Innovation Platform (PIP), will bring insight on how other country posts have dealt with postal monopoly issues. The PIP initiative focuses on the future for the postal industry with a solution-oriented approach and operates under the umbrella of an academic research center (EPFL-MIR based in Switzerland), the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and Swiss Post. Bukovc has served as Director of Inter-Company Pricing and Regulation at the International Post Corporation, as well as Director of Regulatory Affairs for the Austrian post. Bukovc is also an entrepreneur who founded and manages Vinaficia, an e-marketplace supporting European wineries.

Lori Rectanus, Director, Physical Infrastructure, Government Accountability Office (GAO), will moderate panel and participant discussions around potential impacts of changes to the USPS mailbox monopoly on various types of constituents. Rectanus is responsible for GAO’s portfolio of work assessing USPS’s efforts to ensure its viability and accomplish its mission. Rectanus has worked on several initiatives dealing with the USPS, fulfilling Congressional requests and inquiries, and has testified before Congress on issues related to the USPS’ financial challenges and its delivery vehicle fleet.

In addition, one of the key highlights previously announced for the event is a debate around the pros and cons of the existing USPS mailbox monopoly by three prominent industry influencers. Moderated by the Hon. Robert Taub, Acting Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), debaters will include James Campbell, renowned consultant and USPS monopoly expert; David Williams, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government (and former Inspector General for the USPS), and Jim Sauber, Chief of Staff for the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC). Each panelist will take a position on the existing monopoly (to retain, modify, or abolish), with participation and feedback around each position being provided by the diverse group of stakeholders attending the event.